Andromeda43

Timeless, My point exactly......tnx

Sonic,,,(cool dude) I think you're onto something...... Corp shouldn't even be mentioned in this thread. That's NOT what we're talking about. Yes, a key for XP-Pro will work for Pro or any lesser version....like HOME. It would appear that Lic Keys are downward compatible. When you've paid the big bucks for Pro, it allows U to use a cheaper version.... It doesn't work the opposite way though. All this is only relative if you're bent on staying 100% MS-Legal. Some folks get all hung up on that licensing stuff and others just don't give a hoot! Life is so much simpler for the latter group. Right, Sonic? I didn't mean for that post post to be double double! The board did that all by itself. Cheers, Andromeda43

Where?! Why don't you Google for it like I did? Too lazy? OK then go to this url and read. http://www.nextag.com/Symantec-GHOST-2003-...ARE-PRICES-html Too much to type? Then just click this Linky. U no I'm jus messing wit ya.....right? Actually Ghost 2003 is being offered for sale for LESS than $7.95,,,,,how about $6.70, at Bargain Software? My whole point is....that the best backup program that I've ever seen or used is now for sale for the price of a cheap meal at Micky D's, drink included. With this program available so cheap, there's no reason I can think of why everyone shouldn't be doing regular Ghost backups on their system. Get the program, figger out how to use it and share that knowledge with all your friends. NO one needs to loose all their stuff because of a software glitch or HD failure. Happy shopping, Andromeda43

PCI ports (slots) are NOT all created equal. Never put anthing in slot #1 except a video card. Slot #2 should be used for an internal Modem Slots #3 and above could be used for a USB expansion card. If you've put the USB card in the wrong slot, that could be why it's not working. However, I have had one USB card that would NOT work on certain mobo's. I installed a card by different maker, and it worked fine. Give it a try, Andromeda43

I've been using Ghost 2003 for several years....well, since 2003 (I used earlier versions before that, clear back to the version written by the program's originator, "Ghostsoft, Inc." In the mid 90's) The install program created a boot floppy for me, which I've modified considerably, but still use. Since I left my HD in FAT-32 mode, when I installed Windows XP-Pro over my Windows 98/SE install, I can run a cleanup batch file from my Ghost boot floppy, to clean up all the c..r..a..p on my HD before running the Ghost program. I even delete my 789meg Pagefile and all my System Restore points, as well as all temp files, etc. I gain about a gigabyte of free space by doing the cleanup. Just that much less to cram into a backup image file. (God, I love it when a plan comes together) I can boot up my system with the Ghost boot floppy, select "make an image from a partition" and save the image file (compressed or not compressed) to my D: partition, a second HD or to a DVD disk in my DVD burner. Ghost handles it all beautifully. It even offers to use the boot floppy as the boot sector on the DVD making it bootable so you can again run the Ghost program right from the DVD, to do Image Restores. I think it's just a fabulous system. I make my own backup image files several times a week. With my two SATA/Raid drives, it only takes me three minutes to make a Ghost image and store it on my D: partition. I can always copy it to a DVD, and make it bootable, later when I have more time. It's the first thing I would do after setting up a new PC or re-setting a PC after a re-format. Then do it at least once a week for 'Disaster Recovery'. I just saw Ghost 2003 advertised for sale on the internet for $7.95, from a Legal Software Vender. Many users have complained loudly about Ghost 9 NOT being what they expected. I tried it myself and promptly deleted it. Like so many programs purchased by Symantec, they screwed it up! Good Luck, Andromeda43

WELL, one way is to buy a copy of Norton's Ghost. You can still find Ghost 2003 for as low as $7.95. Use it to make a backup image of your C: drive and burn the image to a DVD. When you Don't use a floppy disk, you seriously limit yourself to options. I use Ghost 2003, but the install program makes a Boot Floppy, not a boot CD. However, once you have the Boot Floppy, you can burn a Boot CD and use the Floppy to create the boot sector on the CD. Maybe you could do all that on someone elses computer, that has a floppy drive. When you have a floppy drive, you have many more options available to you. Good Luck, Andromeda43

At the chance of becoming Redundant.....I repeat. THERE IS NO LICENSE KEY RECORDED ANYWHERE ON THE XP INSTALL CD. I just don't know how else to put it. It's NOT there! All Microsoft install CD's are mass recorded....they are all Identical. The only key is the one printed on a tag that comes attached to the Windows manual or affixed to the case of the computer, as is the case for most major brands of computers, like HP, Compaq, Dell, IBM and Gateway. In the Setup.exe program on the CD is a routine that checks the key you type in for validity. All valid keys will conform to a "Pattern" and that's all the validation routine looks for. If you change one digit in a Key, it will invalidate that key. It ruins the pattern and it will not be valid. Any more questions? Cheers Mates B) At the chance of becoming Redundant.....I repeat. THERE IS NO LICENSE KEY RECORDED ANYWHERE ON THE XP INSTALL CD. I just don't know how else to put it. It's NOT there! All Microsoft install CD's are mass recorded....they are all Identical. The only key is the one printed on a tag that comes attached to the Windows manual or affixed to the case of the computer, as is the case for most major brands of computers, like HP, Compaq, Dell, IBM and Gateway. In the Setup.exe program on the CD is a routine that checks the key you type in for validity. All valid keys will conform to a "Pattern" and that's all the validation routine looks for. If you change one digit in a Key, it will invalidate that key. It ruins the pattern and it will not be valid. Any more questions? Cheers Mates B)

So many misconceptions In the first place, there is NO key on the Windows install CD. The only key would be on a tag that came with the XP install CD or is stuck on the case of the computer it was originally installed on. Any key for a like version of windows, or a lesser version, will work. A key for Windows XP-Pro, will work for XP-Home, etc. In the second place you cannot edit something like a CD that is "Read Only" All MS lic. keys have to follow a certain format. That's all the install program looks for. NOT specific key numbers. Good Luck, Andromeda43

For those who are going to keep their Windows 98, 98SE OS,,,,you might just as well get all the performance out of it that you can. Here's a couple of 'tweaks' I've been using for years with very good results. ******************************************* Tweak Win 98,or '98/SE, to make it run more effeciently: 1: START---Settings---Control Panel Double Click "System" Click "Performance" tab Click "File System" Button Set, "Typical Role of this computer" to 'Network Server' Click the Apply button Then: Click the "Floppy Disk" tab Un-Check the little box in 'Settings' window Click "Apply",,,,,,then click OK Click OK again (this change will become permanent after a Re-Boot 2: START---RUN--- type in Sysedit , and then press ENTER Maximize the "System Configuration Editor" window Maximize the "System.ini" window Scroll down till you can see the entire [386Enh] grouping Place your mouse cursor on the first blank line at the bottom of the group Then, type in the following line.... ConservativeSwapfileUsage=1 (type the line exactly as shown,,,with NO spaces and caps where I've put them) Then press enter. The above line will help Windows to use RAM more effectively. Click "File" in the upper left corner of the Editor window. Then click "SAVE" Close the Editor window and Re-Boot your computer. After a re-start, windows will now operate at 15% to 30% faster and more efficient than it did before. Happy Computing, Andromeda43 B)

Don't tell anyone,,,,OK? I'm a factory trained printer tech on five different makes of printers. SHHHHHHHH! I've set up four Epson repair centers here in FL. My favorite printer of the bunch is the Epson. I have three of them here on my own printer table. My favorite one, is the CX3200, all in one. (printer, scanner, copier) I got it, Refurbished, for just $69. You can get some really great bargains from Epson's own web site. They usually have free shipping too. I've installed a dozen or so Epson printers for my customers this year so far. No problems yet. (knocking on wood) Most of the ones I've replaced have been Lexmarks, with a couple of HP's thrown in for good measure. I have an ink supplier here in FL, where I get ink for just a fraction of store prices. www.inkproducts.com Their ink meets or exceedes manufacturers spec's. My best advise to anyone needing a good printer is: "Buy Epson". On any one of my three Epsons, I can print 3x5 cards, envelopes, 1/4 sheets, business cards and CD labels. My Photo R-200 even prints directly on CD's. Cheers, Andromeda43

Maxtor? Good Call! I'd make one max change to that though. I'd change that ATA 133 drive to a SATA drive and install it onto a Buslink SATA controller card (about $30) Your data throughput will be about ten times faster. And for only about $30 more than the cost of the drive. You can buy SATA drives for under $100 all day. With the SATA controller card installed, you can get an adaptor that will let you plug in your old IDE drive to the SATA controller for MUCH faster data transfer. ************************************* Here's what I've done.....and anyone can do it. I installed my first SATA controller and bought my first SATA drive about five months ago. The speed was absolutely fabulous! I just couldn't believe 1500 Mb/Min. That first SATA drive was a WD 120 gig 7200 rpm. I've RMA'd it twice since then. (I've really lost my faith in WD drives) After the first RMA began to fail I replaced it with a Maxtor 160 gig SATA 7200 rpm drive. I just got my second WD RMA drive back from WD and decided to create a RAID 0 setup with my two SATA drives. So I set them up on the Buslink controller card, FDISK'd them and Restored my last Ghost image file. I'm running the two drives now, in RAID 0 configuration ...nice and fast! That left my old 60 gig Maxtor ATA 100 drive, out of work. I just use it for backups. SO, I installed my second Buslink controller card; installed a sata-to-ide adaptor on the back of the Maxtor ATA drive and plugged it into the second controller card with a SATA drive cable. Would you believe?....that old IDE drive now runs at near SATA speed? I couldn't believe it myself till I saw it with my own eyes. Maybe the world just isn't ready for that one yet! So lets just keep that one a secret. SATA Speed on an IDE budget......just a thought Cheers, Andromeda43

Well, as is usual, you didn't give us enough info about your system to formulate anything but the wildest guess as to what's causing your problem. So taking a SWAG at it,,,,,I'd say you're trying to make your old OS (probably some form of Windows XP) boot up on a new mother board. Didn't anyone ever tell you....YOU can't do that? XP's high security protection just won't allow it. You're going to have to re-install windows and get a new registration code from MS. Good Luck,

Jeremy, Don't get all wacko on me! Here's the tally: two fans each on three HD's. (two-fan coolers attached to the bottom of each drive, with 1/4" brass standoffs) two fans on my 500w PSU One fan on my CPU heatsink. that makes nine.....and I don't use case fans because there are NO side panels on my case. So no place for hot air to build up. The whole darn'd thing stays at room temperature. And my FD and CD drives don't get sucked full of dirt either. Care and maintenance of your PC hardware is as important as proper maintenance of your automobile, pick'em'up truck or motorcycle. All them little fans just love to be cleaned and oiled every once in a while. I tear my whole system down about twice a year for a good PM (preventive maintenance inspection) An old hypo needle makes a good oiler for those little fans. The smaller the needle, the better. I refuse to use any video card or mobo that has one of them little "mickey mouse" fans on it. They are all, just trouble waiting to happen. A good heat sink works much better and much longer. I'm running an AMD 3000+ CPU, just slightly over-clocked and it stays nice and cool with the OEM fan that came with it. My old girlfriend ran hotter than my current CPU! Ok, Wacko, ooooops I mean Jeremy, wadda ya think? Do your drives all stay at room temperature? Curious minds want to know, Andromeda43

If it comes down to a problem which would cause you to toss the card,,,,,I think I'd sure try cleaning it first. What can you loose? If there's a fan on the card, you certainly wouldn't want to get it wet. Remove it first. Clean it by hand, carefully. Good Luck, Andromeda43

I have nine fans in my PC. Two per each of my three HD's. Two in my 500w PSU and of course one on my CPU. I still leave the case OFF for better air flow. The main thing is to keep your PC away from the floor to keep it clean. Cheers!

I wanted to try to run an external IDE drive off of a USB port so I bought this adaptor kit. (mail order) It had the adaptor, a little modular power supply and an adaptor for laptop drives. It looked great! But I could never get it to work. I turned it over to a Super Guru friend of mine and got it back a few days later with this comment, "What a piece of crap!) I sent it back to the seller (in California) and got another one back a couple of weeks later. SAME thing! No joy! It's laying on the shelf in my work room right now. Want another one? I'll sell it real cheap! Cheers! Andromeda43

NO, you should grab a handfull of twist ties and gather those loose wires together into bundles and tie them together, away from the fans. A wire in a fan will ruin your day for you. Good Luck,

There is only one fix for a Lexmark printer. It's called a 'trash masher' ! They are, after all, throw-away devices. :cheers:

Cain't spel, cain't punktuize and cain't paragraff. These people would have never passed my 7th grade English class. (maybe they've not gotten up to 7th grade yet...if so I appologize) Crash,,,,,I'm with you.....it hurts my brain too, not to mention my eyes. But they do have a computer. Too bad spell checking doesn't work in these forums. I'm sure not the world's best speller but I do edit every post at least three times. If a mistake misses my scrutiny, it ain't cuz I didn't try. OH Yes,,,,Why use 98? Well, because the computer it came on was specificly designed around it. NOT for W2k or XP. Now if you've just built your own version of the HAL 9000, go for a more up to date OS. I do love 98/SE and still install it on older systems. It does however have a max ram and max HD upper limit. XP does not. Even just to FDISK a large HD, I need to break out the Windows ME boot disk. Even though I've been forced to put XP on my main PC, I kept what I thought was the best part of Win 98/SE. That is....the FAT-32 file structure on my HD. I'm kind of a Control Freak and being able to boot my system from a DOS floppy or CD just gives me 100% control over every file on my HD. There's absolutely NO such thing as a virus, spyware or other bogus file that I can't get rid of. My advise to anyone who, for whatever reason, has to upgrade to XP is: Use an XP-Pro Upgrade CD and if it asks you, tell it to keep your existing file structure. Enjoy 98 while you can, Andromeda43

The ONLY devices on a modern computer that can be safely removed with "Power ON" are USB devices. They were designed for this. Removing a hard drive, which is a heavy power user, causes a surge of power in the power supply which can scram the whole system. It could even cause power supply failure if the PSU is the least bit marginal. Just DON'T do it! Andromeda43

That's the pure joy of using Windows 98......If you know what a file name is, you have several ways to get rid of it. 1. Do a find for it (in windows). Once found, try renaming it from an .exe file to something like .bad 2. Once you know where it lives (what folder), you can always boot up with a DOS boot disk, (if you dont' have one, SHAME ON YOU!) and go into the folder and either rename the file or just delete it. I just love working on a 98 machine, because I can do absolutely Anything I want to with it. It's not like XP, where the operator and even the tech is locked out of everything. Long Live 98!

Sempron is to AMD as Celeron is to Intel. The common difference is in the amount of Cache. The greater the cache, the greater the performance. Pay less money and get less performance......that's just a fact of life. Andromeda43

Right! All joking aside, dirt buildup on printed circuit cards has downed some of the biggest systems in the country. CMOS circuitry depends on voltage and not current. Just a little voltage bleeding over from one pin to another on a cmos chip, can change the state of a logic gate and cause some really weird errors. I found out about this phenominon a few years back when a friend of mine told me he had a contract with a very large company that made power handling controllers for Shopping Malls. They would ship him their failed logic boards and he would clean them, repair them and send them back. His technique for cleaning the boards was almost exactly what I outlined in my initial post. I would be somewhat reluctant to wash a PC board with active components on it, like relays, or open coils. Some modems have such parts on them. I thank y'all for your participation in this thread, Andromeda43

Unless you've got some very strange monitor.....don't worry about it. Windows will handle it. Heck, I put a new video card in my own PC yesterday and Windows even installed drivers for that....I didn't have to do a thing. It just worked! I couldn't believe it! Marvelous Darling.....simply maahvelous! Cheers, Andromeda43 B)

Most cooling fans are of pretty poor quality. Bronze bushings mostly, with very little lubrication. Like all personal computer parts they are NOT designed for 100% duty cycle. So, if you're leaving your PC on all the time you're running it about five times harder than those cheap parts were ever designed for. So it's going to fail five times faster than a system that's run in accordance with design spec's. If you can trace the noise down to a specific fan.....(just take the left side panel off and listen) then you can fix it. The main reasons for a fan to get noisey is, one, dirt and two loss of lubrication. Even though I run my PC not more than eight hours a day, I tear it down and give it a very thorough cleaning about twice a year. I have nine fans in my computer and each one of them gets a shot of oil and a very good cleaning on every inspection. I use a small hypodermic syringe to inject a drop or two of oil into the bearing, right through the seal (on the back of the fans) This technique keeps all my fans running quiet and happy. I've been at this stuff for a very long time, and I've developed a fix for just about everything that can possibly go wrong with any electronics gear. (including PC's) Good Luck, Andromeda43 B)